Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Heart of the Home

Our Kitchen!

When we first purchased the house, we were under the (naive) impression that all we would be doing was "updating." This house was simply going to be a "hobby." We look back now at our initial ToDo list and chuckle over how easy we thought the process was going to be.

Repair plaster as needed

update light fixtures

etc.

Well, ALL new drywall, electrical, plumbing, siding, windows, doors, appliances, and flooring later . . . . we are finally on the "home stretch."

The way that the kitchen turned out completely exceeded my expectations! Not that I did not have every confidence in Austin & Bryce's ability to make it fabulous, but the odds were definitely not in our favor. You see, we had measured for new cabinets and purchased them (on an amazing sale at Menard's) when there was no drywall on the walls, and we had just the most basic of ideas about what we wanted the kitchen to look like. As often happens with remodelling projects, every step takes much longer than you expect it to, so once the cabinets arrived, they had to live in the garage for just shy of a year while we finished framing and leveling and repairing termite damage (another LOOOOONG story for another time) and having drywall installed, taped, textured, and finished. Needless to say this is not the manufacturer-recommended process for installing kitchen cabinets and having them actually fit the way you had envisioned. Old homes are also not known of their plumb and level lines and surfaces.

This is what the kitchen (well, the spot where we ended up putting the kitchen) looked like before we started:

Remember, this house was divided into 5 apartments when we purchased it, so this space was being used as a child's bedroom/hallway between a family room and the dining room. The walls were covered in chalkboard paing (all 4 of them), and the carpet was really as red as it looks!

Behind this door (above) was the main floor furnace. There was also a furnace on the second floor. And this corner (right) is where our kitchen sink now sits.

Even with ALL of this craziness, and the odds stacked against them, my wonderful husband and father-in-law gave me the kitchen of my dreams! Come with me and we'll take the tour :)

This (above) is looking into the kitchen from the dining room. There used to be a wall between these two rooms, and the main floor furnace used to sit directly to the left of the exposed chimney. (This is the rear view of the 2nd before photo. The chimney was inside the wall, and we decided that it looked nice exposed. We still need to clean it up and seal it.) Every surface in this kitchen is perfectly level, and we could have a party inside the top cabinets without them even coming loose!

This is the corner in the third before picture. (Please forgive the poor quality of my photography.)

There you have it! I am truly spoiled :)

Thanks for reading!

P.S. ~ Thank you all for your kind comments and your thoughts and prayers! Praise the Lord we have had several beautiful days of sunshine! We are still in a flood warning until early Monday morning, but the weatherman was calling for rain today, and there's not a cloud in the sky!

P.P.S. ~ Many of you asked about my huge calendar! I will be posting next week about how I put that together!

OMG! I can't believe your room went from black and red to amazing! I love it. And I bet your appreciate it even more because of the hard work it took and the transformation it went through. Awesome! BTW, I am super in love with your wall calendar. I need info!

Hi Katy Lin!WOW! What a transformation! Beautiful kitchen! Our first house was an old home in the city. We loved it's old charm but worked on it all the time. We were young and had the energy to do that back then! It's so much fun making it into your dream. We wanted a better school system for our boys so we made our first move to the burbs. I still think about that house and all it's character.I'm having fun with My Husband Rocks! Great idea Katy!!Hugs, Sherry

Your kitchen looks wonderful; a lot of love and time went into such a big project! How wonderful that your husband can handle so many aspects of renovation. That will save you a lot of money, and he will probably do a much better job. BTW, love that calendar!